Staande vrouw en een vrouwenhoofd 1875 - 1934

Isaac Israels made these two sketches, Staande vrouw en een vrouwenhoofd, with graphite on paper. These figures, caught in their repose, become these bundles of raw marks. I imagine Isaac, the artist, with a sketchbook in hand, quickly trying to capture the essence of the figure’s form with just a few lines. Like a jazz musician improvising a melody, the artist lets the pencil dance across the page, capturing the figure in a flurry of motion. There’s something so intimate and vulnerable about these sketches, the artist is trying to capture a feeling, a mood, rather than a literal representation of reality. It's like the ghost of an image. Israels's sketches remind us that art is an ongoing conversation, a dialogue between artists across time and space.